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Loading...McDonald’s Shareholders Reject Health Proposal
For the second year in a row, McDonald’s shareholders voted down a resolution asking the company to assess its impact on public health. With fast food increasingly linked to diet-related diseases and childhood obesity, Corporate Accountability International partnered with more than 2,500 health professionals and institutions who are urging McDonald’s to stop marketing junk food to children.
The resolution supported by 6.4 percent of shareholders (up from 5.9 percent last year) requested:
…that the Board of Directors issue a report, at reasonable expense and excluding proprietary information, within six months of the 2012 annual meeting, assessing the company’s policy responses to growing evidence of linkages between fast food and childhood obesity, diet-related diseases and other impacts on children’s health. Such report should include an assessment of the potential impacts of public concerns and evolving public policy on the company’s finances and operations.
Dr. Andrew Bremer, a pediatric endocrinologist and professor of pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, had this to say at the shareholder meeting:
McDonald’s can no longer ignore the spiraling costs of its business practices on our children’s health and on our healthcare system. This issue is not only critical to the health and well-being of generations to come, but also to shareholders who should be better informed about the liabilities associated with the businesses they’re investing in.
Maureen Morrison in Advertising Age quoted the company’s response:
We offer a variety of food choices to our customers; provide nutrition information about our menu items in a variety of accessible ways so that families can make informed decisions; communicate with children in a responsible manner through age appropriate marketing and promotional activities; and encourage children and families to live balanced, active lifestyles.
Read more: childhood obesity, corporate social responsibility, fast food, mcdonalds, Shareholder resolution
Photo credits: Thinkstock
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Give a man a fish...
I am willing to bet that is has a lot to do with our farming practices and the high use of antibiotics…
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104 comments
+ add your ownjust show them by not going there.
is that too hard?
how hard is it to cook at home?
or try some restaurant more healthy,
if you have to eat out.
sure the stockholders would change after
the sheep quit flocking to the Golden Arches
for six meals a day ...
profits over people
Lisa H. is correct when stating that the food industry is putting all sorts of crud into the foods that we are eating. Proper labelling of every ingredient would help and letting us know if the food is GMO also helps.
There are so many toxins in foods these days compared to even thirty years ago it is little wonder children have peanut allergies and what not. No one had even heard of peanut allergies when I was in school in the early sixties! Children ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and we did not drop like flies! These days there are so many more additives and things in highly refined/processed foods little wonder there are so many health problems.
McDonald's thinking of health is going against their bottom line. Not likely!
The ShareHolders are not supporting unhealthy lifestyles or animal abuse. They are simply not willing to be subjected to what is already a biased attack. McDonald's is a choice not an obligation. There are plenty of obese kids out there who cannot blame it on McDonald's. Health is personal and it is up to us to take care of ourselves. When did McD's become my nutritionist? If I walk up to the counter and order 40 cheeseburgers are they suppossed to question me? Really? Be responsible, get off your ass and walk to McD's instead of driving thru and don't make it a habit. They have nutritional guidelines in the restaurant and online - if you read it and still want to eat it don't bitch that it made you fat. YOU are the problem, not the fast food chains. The government needs to spend more time telling people to get up and move and less time trying to make McD's pay for obesity.
Of course the shareholders reject anything bordering on improved health or less cruelty to animals because it would reduce their profits...
I had my first taste of McD's in the early 70's..when the company slathered out cute "sing along" jingles as a means of pulling in a population of babysitting/newspaper route working teens, tempting them to spend their dollars on quarter pounders and fries. Parents looked at McD's as a place to eat, as a treat. We went there once a month and to A&W once a month. Two generations later, I watch my obese neighbors and their obese children climbing out of their cars, with their take out McD's bags, in hand 3-4 times a week.... A WEEK!!! Four of those children on my street are diabetic. "I just don't have enough time to cook." "I take good care of my children." ~~ some of the words I hear from the very parents of those diabetic, obese children. How does one ignore simple little realities like that..without wondering whether or not McD's has any responsibility for meal habits in this modern culture? Subliminal seduction in advertising is still alive and well and living on billboards, in ads, and on tv..."feeding" today's children more incentives to sway mom/dad towards McD's fast food convenience. If kids were out playing and exercising, I wonder how many McD's ads they'd miss on tv, while they work up a healthy appetite, that includes acquiring a taste for healthier foods?
Yes, of course we can all make our own choices. But this decision sounds like greed, pure and simple, to me.
Good for them .As a person I can make a choice to eat fast food or not.I myself choose not.
OF course they would. If they would stop selling fat, grease, and pink slime how would they be able to buy a villa in France, vacation home in The Hamptons????
Good for Mickey D's, tell the Government where they can stuff a Big mac.......Side ways!
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